The document summarizes a workshop on using techniques like Clean Language and Systemic Modeling to foster better communication on agile teams. The workshop covered listening exercises, using Clean setup to clarify goals, providing structured feedback, and modeling best practices. About 45 people attended the 4-5pm session, though no questions were asked at the end due to people needing to leave on time. The presenter was glad to get feedback and will offer another longer workshop on the same topics.

1. AGILE DC 2014 WORKSHOP
3 TECHNIQUES FOR
HIGH-QUALITY
COMMUNICATION ON
YOUR AGILE TEAMS
Andrea Chiou
October 21, 2014

2. Andrea Chiou, agile coach
@andreachiou
Caitlin
David Grove
Gerald Weinberg
Virginia Satir
Blog: www.adaptivecollaboration.com
Walker
Influencers
andrea.chiou@santeon.com
Marshall Rosenberg
Book: www.leanpub.com/whoisusingclean

3. PROJECT SUCCESS
! is a function of listening,
feedback, intentionality,
practice(s)

4. PROJECT SUCCESS
!
Teaming agreements and processes
alone do not tap the rich diversity of
experience and knowledge that is
inherent in each person.
A culture where it is safe to explore is
needed.
Clean Language and Systemic
Modeling techniques foster better
collaboration

5. WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE KNOW
BEFORE WE GET STARTED?

6. WHAT I WOULD LIKE TO HAVE
HAPPEN
• I’d like for this to be a flexible session, not rushed.
• I’d like to be able to answer questions along the
way
• I’d like for their to be enough time to debrief
• I’d like folks to leave with a few ‘aha’s
• I would like to have some clean feedback on the
session (drop the paper back at the Santeon
booth or email me at andrea.chiou@santeon.com)

7. TRAINING ATTENTION
WE’LL USE
SYSTEMIC
MODELLING
AND CLEAN
LANGUAGE
TODAY

8. WHERE HAS IT BEEN USED?
interviews
hiring
coaching
research
schools IT
doctors
geriatric care
large organizations
therapy and social work
police
investigations
ISO 9000
audits

9. THE ESSENCE OF CLEAN QUESTIONS
Images taken from Contempt to
Curiosity with permission

10. FIVE SENSES WARMUP
Taste a lemon
See an elephant
Feel hot sand
Hear music
Smell perfume
What do you think of or visualize when
you hear one of these phrases?
Tell your partner
The partner pays attention to their own
thinking as they hear the other’s answer.
Partner asks one or two of the clean
questions:
!
What kind of…?
Anything else about…?
Whereabouts (or where) is …. ?
!
Partner pays attention to how their
‘model’ (what they imagine the other
person saw) - needs to be updated after
each answer.

11. METAPHOR WARMUP
We'll warm up using a metaphor exercise called:
!
Life is like X, because Y
!
This exercise lets us have fun with meanings and associations,
without being too serious. It gets us comfortable with describing one
thing in terms of another. We can substitute ‘life’ with words like
‘project’, ‘team’, etc.
!
One person in pair says ‘Life is like X’, filling in X.
The partner in the pair, fills in, because Y.
!

12. EXERCISE 1A - LISTENING
We'll practice listening by suppressing our quite natural urge to
respond.
!
We'll do this by listening to a partner talk about an event.
!
The ‘X’ (event) could be: a meeting, event, an interview, training,
demo, retrospective, or something else
!
Start by asking ‘What the (some event) was like? ‘ and listen for one
minute, without responding at all.
!

13. EXERCISE 1B - LISTENING
!
We'll do this again, allowing ourselves to ask any of the two basic
clean questions as many times as we want, at natural breaks in the
flow.
!
We use the two core clean questions:
!
‘And is there anything else about X?,
!
‘And what kind of X is that?
!
X represents a word or phrase used by the person you are listening to.
!

14. CLEAN SETUP - THE THEORY
One of the core premises in Clean is that
there is a desired outcome. Many clean
conversations get started with the
question:
‘What would you like to have happen?’

15. EXERCISE 2A - CLEAN SETUP
!
We'll learn to become more intentional when we interact with people with the purpose
of discovering what we want.
!
We'll do this by practicing listening to a partner talk about something they intend to do
differently or improve on in the near future and asking systemic modeling questions.
!
Planning for a future event
!
For ‘X' to go as you would like, it would be like what?
or
What would you like to have happen?
!
The ‘X’ (event) could be: a project, meeting, event, an interview, training, demo,
retrospective.
!
You can augment the answer with the two core clean questions.

16. EXERCISE 2B - CLEAN SETUP
You can augment this with:
!
What will you or others notice (see/hear) that will be evidence that you achieved that?
!
What would that mean to you (inference)?
!
And what would the impact be on you/others?
!
****
!
And for ‘X’ to go like that, you'll need to be like what?
!
And what support do you need from me (or the group)?
!!
! In a group, or where several people are organizing the event, you would go around and ask everyone.
Group awareness comes from understanding each person with their unique perceptions and needs.
!

17. EXERCISE 3 - CLEAN FEEDBACK
We'll learn to use a three step process to give congruent feedback.
!
We'll do this by simulating a scenario from work or home life.
We can address either what went well, or what didn’t go so well.
!
Tell your partner who they are ‘role playing’ - and a bit about the scenario. The
person role playing will listen to you give the feedback, but doesn’t have to respond.
However, the role player may prompt you as needed to ensure the feedback giver
follows the format. The prompts would be:
!
• EVIDENCE: What did you hear or see?
• INFERENCE: What did that mean to you?
• IMPACT: What was the impact from your perspective?
!
The role player may also use the two clean questions to ask more about the
feedback.

18. CLEAN FEEDBACK
What worked well
What did you observe?
!
What did that mean to you?
!
!
What was the impact for you?
What did not work so well
What did you observe?
!
What did that mean to you?
!
!
What was the impact was for you?

19. EXERCISE 4 - MODELING
We'll learn to find out how we do things now through modeling via
metaphor and augmenting with other clean questions. Modeling here
refers to eliciting understanding of the way you do something so that
you and others can understand how you do it. And, so that you can
more easily re-create that state.
!
When you are ‘___X__ing at your best, you are like what?
!
This ‘X’ (verb) could be pair-coding, practicing, studying, learning,
facilitating, coaching, working.
!
We can use the core 2 clean questions to find out more.
!

20. MODELING IDEAS
Learning at your
best
Parenting at your
best
Coding at
your best
Coaching at
your best
Studying at your
best
Designing at your
best

21. Q&A
Here are the results of this workshop since there was no Q&A .
At the end of the day, for a 4-5 p.m. session, about 45 folks showed up.
Everyone remained energetic throughout, but apparently needed to get home, so
there were no questions asked at the end. I was glad to get Clean Feedback forms
from over 30 people, and I have incorporated a few of those suggestions into this
version of the deck.
!
I want to express my appreciation to all who came and those who stayed after to talk to
me. If you are in the DC area and want more practice with this, I’ll be running this same
workshop on January 30th in a 3 hour Friday morning session.
The details of that and registration are available here: http://mafn.org/
event-1724379